Behind Formula Drift - FD Changes, Porsche Drift SUV & Tire Tariff Nightmares | Circle of Drift #145 - The Circle of Drift

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Forget the money, like the amount of effort and time and
energy and just stress you have to just naturally have to deal
with is pretty wild. Friends or like relationships I
have or whatever. It's almost scary, like, hey,
I'm warning you now, this is going to get a little rough
sometime. Welcome back to the Circle of
Drift podcast presented by SIM HQ.
My name is Dawson, and today we're at FD, but this one's

(00:23):
still at FD in Atlanta for Part 3.
When was the last time most people had a two hour 3 hour
conversation Not on their phones, No ego, no negative
emotion where you're forced to absorb somebody else's opinion
and actually think about it and then respond back.
What size wheels and stuff are you?
Do you have to run on that? One of those.

(00:45):
That's so big. If you come and tell me that you
spent $20,000 on an engine but you don't have a media guide, I
will laugh in your face. For the future of FD, there's
some really cool works. If you've been waiting for
changes, I think next year is going to be.
It there's so much more in this episode to make sure you look
below the video and smash that subscribe button.
And without further ado, let's get in the podcast.

(01:08):
I've been in the field with whatever they throw at me.
Brush it. I'll pick myself up.
Moving on a little better. Hey.
Yeah. Ain't no errors, baby.
Here's a new error. All right.
Well, definitely got a familiar face here.
I assume we're going all right. Cool.
Right? Jacob Giddings, Nice to see you,
man. How are we doing out here at FDE
in Atlanta? Tuk was a bad choice.

(01:31):
It's definitely hot. Yeah, it's like I'd agree with
that. This thing is like the best and
worst decision I've made in my career because it's, well, it's
like, it's instantly recognizable, which is awesome.
So the marketer in me is like sick.
This is Ben. Yeah, literally men the.
Practical person's like you haveto wear this thing no matter
what the temperature is. So I was, I was walking around a
bit yesterday without it on and like a couple of people stopped

(01:51):
me who really know who I was. That was kind of cool.
Yeah. But most people, like, I just
look like any other staff member.
So sorry dude. But he's still selling his
stuff, I assume. Yeah, yeah, we've got him.
We've got him at the truck now, yeah.
So I'm hoping it just gets cold and then everybody needs a hat
and then it's like. Yeah, when it rains.
Situational, right? There you go.
So no, it's. Good dude.
I mean, Atlanta's awesome. I mean, obviously there's a

(02:15):
whole bunch going on, right? Now, yeah, we got grid life
going on. It's got the rest car.
It might be a little bit louder than normal, so bear with us of
course. You know what, we used to edit
out a lot of the background noise in the episode, and now,
as long as it's something that makes sense, we'll keep it in
like Jay or audio engineer. I literally tell the the editor
like keep some of the automotivesound like the engine running

(02:35):
the back, the cars. Fucking Sean Booth goes Booth.
Yeah. No, I ought to set a GoPro up
pointing out you should, Yeah, So I can sync it imposed.
Yeah. No, like I can't remember who it
was. Oh, we did one with Amy Boxes.
It's not out yet. And they live right near a set
of train tracks. So like every 40 minutes, like a
train would go by. But it was like soft and in the

(02:56):
background. And I'm like, we got to keep
that in 'cause it, it just sounds good.
Like it just adds to the, IT adds to the feeling of the
episode. Hell yeah.
How you feel that I'm out here doing what you do?
No, I love it dude. Listen.
No, no, we're good. We're good.
Anybody who like on the Internetthinks there's beef here.
There's not. Oh I know, I love it.
Especially the posts I made likepeople were tagging you and

(03:17):
stuff like come on, come on. No, I like I want listen what I
do and what you do. Both are necessary because like
for a lot of people, they don't realize like I used to do what
you were doing right now, which is like the independent
journalism, you know, independent podcast not owned by
FD, supported by FD, which is great.

(03:37):
But like you get to talk about and interview people.
I can't. It's true, and in a moment that
you can't as well. Exactly.
So what I've noticed, not not tocut you off, but what I've
noticed, especially being at events, is I get the raw, most
genuine part of every driver that's out here because they're
like, they're all a pump full ofadrenaline.
They just came off track, dude. It's it's fantastic.

(03:59):
Well, that's why I like the podium show, I think is probably
the best version of the podcast of the Outer Zone is because
it's raw. Like that adrenaline is here and
then you kind of you get to ridethat adrenaline down with them
where they start to calm down, but like, it's still sick.
So, but yeah, I, I think it's super important.
I love the show. I love what you get to do.
I wish I got a little bit not freedom because like really FD

(04:21):
has no major control over what Ido, but I feel like I'm in a
lane so you can interview whatever driver you want.
They don't even have to be a driver.
It's just whatever I. Don't even have the media people
on all the time. Exactly.
And mine's a little bit more like, OK, it should be FD
drivers, FD staff, FD spotters. Like it's got to be with FD.

(04:41):
You can interview whoever. So you have a lot more freedom
in what you get to do. And that's that's awesome.
And the the trade off for me is like I have a bit more backing
and support by the series in particular.
So I have a couple more resources.
You know, there's a little bit more funding that's coming in.
You know you've got sick camerasthat's coming out of what you

(05:02):
your pocket to do it for me, I have a budget every year for a.
Couple years. So it's like.
That's but that's the differencein the two, right?
You got to work a bit harder, but you have more freedom.
I don't have to work as hard, but I'm stuck into a bit more of
a lane. Do you ever miss the freedom of
that that side of things? A little bit there's like
there's certain like certain things I like want to get into

(05:23):
with drivers, whereas I feel like it it's not the right
podcast to do that with, right, right.
Like let's say I'm trying to think of like a good example.
So like let's say we get Dinofa back on right 'cause he was just
on the goodest cast, which another great podcast.
Like I would love to have you onby the way, if you're watching.
And I would love to go on. So like, yeah, that's what we

(05:45):
should do. We should do find.
All the Way Podcast. And just talking about drifting
podcasting in general, that'd bea sick episode.
Comment if you want to see it. Yeah, that that would be sick.
Just us telling war stories about like corrupted files and
like bad audio. Guess who don't answer you like,
But yeah, so like, let's say I have Dinofa on, I would be a

(06:07):
little bit more respectful of, you know, like pack your shit in
the trailer kind of inner like that part.
I would still bring it up, but the way that I bring it up would
be different than how you could bring it up, right?
And how he would speak about it would probably be different with
me than how he'd speak about it with you.
Just because this is an officialFD thing.
He's going to be a little bit more.

(06:28):
And I, I mean, maybe, I don't know.
Donofa's a wild man. I was about to say, there's
probably some of them out there that wouldn't give them,
wouldn't really care. But like, that's, that's just
how it's going to be, right? It's, it's a different, it's
just a different show. So, but yeah, I mean, I, there's
definitely times where I wish I could go back.
I've been toying with the I've, I've, I launched a second show

(06:49):
that has nothing to do with FD, but it's just, it's not my focus
right now. So it's only had a couple
episodes and once I get like a backlog of five or six, I'll
probably promote it more so. Gotcha, gotcha.
Well that'd be cool to see a different perspective of you.
But it just allows me to do whatI do for this show.

(07:10):
But it doesn't have to be anything to do with drifting,
just people I want to talk to that's.
That's kind of like Josiah does with his old podcast that he
did. Which I wish he'd bring that
back too. Like people don't realize like
how many how many hours do you put into one show if you had?
To it's not just me anymore. No, I know.
That's the day is like it's hardto even calculate.
But total total man hours? How many do you think goes into

(07:33):
one episode? I know my number, I'm just
curious what yours is. I ought to sit down one day and
actually do the math on this, but if I had to guess, including
the editors time. So OK, so let's break it down.
Let's go pre show scheduling. How long does that take?
It could take anywhere from an hour depending on the guest to

(07:54):
WAS 5. Yeah, and then research.
How many hours of research? Approximately at least two of
right 3. Hours so let's say let's keep it
on the minimum so now we're at 3hours right let's just say it's
an hour to schedule between emails texting right now we're
at two hours of research so 3 hours total then you have to do
the show so you're. Set up time for because my, my

(08:19):
setup's mobile on top of that. So a lot of the times I'm if
it's at home, I got to put it back at home.
If it's at an event, I got to take it out to an event.
So there's a lot of setup. Time.
Maybe another hour there. Easily, yeah.
The shows what, 2 hours normally?
Yeah, so for a normal 1. Before you even edit, you're at
six hours of Labor for one episode, right?

(08:40):
Yeah. And then editing is at least two
to three. Mastering's another one or two
10 hours easy. Oh yeah, yeah, it's, it's
probably a little bit more that goes into it on on top of that,
because then you're making reelsat the end of it, you're making
show notes, you're doing. One episode is 12 hours easy.
That's that's. A guarantee that a. 100% that's

(09:00):
basically where like I don't have this setup issue, but I'll
have it. I I have like we send the guests
a mic because it's all remote. So I have an hour of just
teaching them how to plug a microphone in.
Right, that's not fun. Let me tell you no.
And I've started. Why I don't do it I've.
Started recording that now, so I'm compiling all these drivers,
just struggling to get a microphone to work 'cause I

(09:24):
didn't in the beginning, right? That should be your bloopers at
the end of the show, man. And here's here's the funnier
part. The better the driver, the
harder time they have getting ships set up every.
They understand his car. Yeah, like Dinofo Donofa and
James Dean both. It was like, we're trying to get
it to work. We're trying to get things to
connect. I'm about to just scratch the
podcast. Yeah, exactly.

(09:45):
Like Becky had to come in to help James get the mics.
It's just every time it's but yeah, people don't realize 10
hours and it's like that's that's all the labor.
What's the most absurd situationyou've dealt with with the FD
podcast? Oh that's a good one.
Donofa's was funny because halfway through recording he had
like lights set up and one of them just fell on him like mid

(10:07):
recording it just like tips overand hits him in the head.
That one was pretty crazy. A lot of Internet issues.
I had one years ago where I was recording this is like before
the FD one. I can't remember who I was
recording with and like my kids were asleep.
It was my wife was working and Iwas like oh cool, let's do a
podcast tonight. And one of my kids like got out

(10:28):
of bed, climbed their bunk bed and just fell.
So like mid podcast you just hear a child screaming and I'm
like I can't remember who I was.Recording not as bad as it
sounds. I'm like, I got to, I got to go
for a second and I come back, I'm like holding my kid who's
wailing. I'm like, bro, can we do this
another night? He's like, yeah, totally fine.
But like it's an. Insert situation.
It was just. Like I'm like, what am I going
to do? Like hold my kid who's screaming

(10:49):
Drake interviewing him first. So what about you any any fun
like? Dude, I will say if it's
probably not absurd, but like the podcast I did was shorky.
Yeah, we did. I think it was almost an hour of
recording and I never pressed record on the audio recorder.
Damn, I felt fucking horrible. It happens, it happens, It

(11:12):
happened. Luckily they were, they had
plenty of time, so they were like, fuck it, let's run it
back. He's such a cool dude.
Dude, amazing. I've known that he was one of
the guys like when I first started drifting, that he same
track like me. Now listen, I'm not putting
myself at the same level these guys because I'm not a great
drifter, but Josiah Shorkey myself, we all were part of that

(11:32):
same group, all the DNA drift guys, like we're all part of
that same group that started at Shannonville.
So all a little bit different times.
Like Josiah was there a little earlier than me, Sharky was a
little earlier than me. But all the guys that you're
from Canada now, you're always here.
Yeah, well, I guess you live here.
I'm down in Florida now, so, butyeah, those are the guys I grew
up with. Like I I've got a video

(11:55):
somewhere of like one of the first mantis kits ever made
because I did a shop tour with Josiah when he was in his old
shop when he was known for building crazy roll cages.
From the back end of things and being able to see that for so
long, what is your perception ofFDF and how exponential they've
done with their branding and parts in general?

(12:16):
It's like what Josiah did, change the industry in a lot of
ways and, and we can get into the specifics of the kids and
the engineering and all that stuff, but basically Wisefab had
a pretty big chokehold on the industry.
There was a lot of other brands that kind of came in and out,
right? Like we can get it up.
There's so many, right? Some that came in, did really
well, dropped off, but Josiah filled the need and did a really

(12:38):
good job of it. And it what it really did is it
forced Wisefab and every other brand to have to go back to the
drawing table and redevelop and if anything else.
You're seeing it out of Wise Fabright now.
Pardon. You're seeing it out of Wise,
Fab. Right now, everybody has to, and
this is the glory of like, I don't want to say capitalism,
but like competition in the market, right?

(12:59):
Once somebody comes in, once a competitor comes in and is
either better or cheaper or whatever, everybody else has to
pick up the slack to, to figure out what they're doing.
So Josiah did some things with like specific parts that break
to save the rest of the parts, right?
Very smart. Then you saw other companies
adapt to that. I can't remember if flies Fab
already had that. So I don't want to like say

(13:21):
definitively that they did, But regardless, brands had to then
compete. But then at some point they got
ahead of FDF and then Josiah hadto answer.
Now you get this race back and forth of who's going to create
the best possible parts for the most competitive price.
And and that's what from the grassroots side of things, we
win. There's always my argument.

(13:41):
People like, oh, I hate pro drifting.
I'm like, bro, if it wasn't for pro drifting, you wouldn't have
angle kits that only cost 2 grand.
You would have chopped knuckles or you would have some weird
hybrid knuckle that still cost you $900 and that shit because
your Ackerman's like this. Like you you.
Still be welding them fucking things.
Yeah. It's like, think about it this
way. If you didn't have F1, we

(14:01):
wouldn't have carbon fiber. Like we wouldn't have carbon
fiber the way we do now. Yeah, exactly.
So if it wasn't for HDK, you wouldn't have all these cars out
here. If it wasn't for Kristoff
competing in FD, you wouldn't have all these crazy HDK cars.
That's true, right? People don't ever look at the
ripple effect behind it. It's that's why the that's why

(14:22):
the podcast is beautiful. Yeah, that's why this helps.
I think for both of us, like, you know, I, well, I appreciate
it, but like for both of us, when was the last time most
people had a two hour, 3 hour conversation?
Not on their phones, just shooting the shit.
No ego, no like negative emotionwhere you're forced to absorb

(14:43):
somebody else's opinion and actually think about it and then
respond back. Most people talk.
Most people listen waiting for their chance to talk.
They don't actually listen. When you're in a podcast, you
are forced to listen because if you just go, yeah, yeah.
And then you move on to something else that's a shit
show, no one's gonna listen. Everyone will see it.
Right. But for you and I and for

(15:04):
anybody to produce the podcast or anybody who's on a podcast,
you have to sit and absorb what that person saying, think about
it, and then have a meaningful response or question to keep the
combo going. That's what's cool.
About this Not easy and it's noteasy.
The hardest part is learning to just shut the fuck up.
It's hard, yeah. And you've gotten really good at
that because in the beginning you talked a lot, and so did I.

(15:27):
It's bad, yeah, But you have to go back and watch those and
realize how far you've come and how much you've developed.
Because my old podcasts were dogshit.
Like thank you to you guys as well because you called me out
for it. It's all good though.
I mean, if we can just trim backyour hell yeahs, now you're set.
Dude I know someone made a comment about that the other day
and was like you got to make a shirt that says hell Oh my.

(15:51):
But it should just. Be your eyes.
Your eyes that like happens, youknow, like hell yeah.
I, I get the I have my own things that I do.
I do like a weird thing where I'll double back when I speak.
I'll start down a sentence and then almost abruptly stop it and
then go back to contextualize itand then bring that sentence
back. And it's, it's a, it's kind of a

(16:11):
literary device. It's a way of keeping people
engaged in the conversation 'cause you, you get them to
point, like, Oh my God, he's gonna and then you come back.
But if for some people it's justso frustrating that just say it.
So I have to do those. The other one is I start
sentences with so a lot. I'm aware of that.
You don't. I've noticed that, yeah.
Take your Take your your podcasttranscript and run it through

(16:35):
ChatGPT and get it to analyze itand see what it finds because.
There's some crazy. Stuff in there, it's going to
hurt your feelings. My biggest?
Thing I've been trying to focus on is like speaking with my face
because I can you don't have theluxury as much because you're
doing remote. So like both screens are on are
visible at the same time. So but I can sit here and like

(16:56):
instead of me saying yeah, Oh yeah, yeah, cool.
OK, OK, OK. Instead of me doing that, I can
just make facial expressions so that they don't have to get
annoyed by it. And you get to still see that
I'm responding, engaging in a conversation and but they don't
see me look stupid making my faces either.
Closing your mouth and head nodding to like, reassure the

(17:17):
other person that's what's goingon because I did the same thing
for years. Yeah, that's the like, go on.
Go on. Yeah.
Keep going. The other one is the power of
silence. That's one that took me a long
time to learn that when somebody's on a point and then
they stop and you can just be silent for two seconds, they'll
get uncomfortable and keep going.

(17:39):
Yes, that is. So true.
I'll use that. I noticed that, yeah.
And certain people don't get it and they'll just sit there
quietly and you're like, shit, that did not work, but now?
I got to joke up a little bit. Or knowing when to talk over
somebody and when not to. There's you shouldn't in
general, but there's situations where you want to talk over them

(17:59):
to keep them going right, right.Not to interrupt them, but just
to like, yeah, yeah, for sure. Like, and you want to get them
hyped on their point or keep them going down that path, so.
Absolutely, yeah. It's a it's a weird art, dude.
It's very weird. I'm still learning every single
day. Dude, same here.
We'll get there, We'll get there.
It's just reps. Yeah.
Because how many episodes are you on now?

(18:20):
I think this will 142 comes out this Sunday.
OK, sick. So we're pretty heavy into it
now. Yeah, I think I'm one O 6 or one
O 7 on this show, and I think wehit like 120 on the old one.
So I got a few on you, but not that many.
Not that many. But getting there.
You. I think you started like further

(18:42):
ahead than I did when I started mine because mine were brutal
the first ten. What do you mean just your
ability was already was further ahead on episode 1 than mine was
on episode 1. Now I'm including my old.
Show as well. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah. So.
Well, let me get your advice on this then, All right?
If anyone was looking to start apodcast in this space, drifting,

(19:03):
automotive, all of that stuff, would you suggest they do it and
why? Oh 100%.
I mean, we need more stories. So if you look at like what
makes different sports great, it's a or anything, anything
great that's entertainment. All that entertainment is is
turning your brain on or turningyour brain off, right?

(19:24):
You want something to keep thinking or you want something
to turn, like just to be mindlessly entertained.
But in doing so, you need a constant revolving door of shit
to do that with. There are what, hundreds of
thousands of Drifters out there?And then there's another
multiple hundreds of thousands of people that support drifting

(19:45):
out there. So why not tell the stories of
your locals, right? Everybody starts local, right?
When you're driving, when you'redoing any of it.
So tell the stories of those people.
Because the cool thing is you might be able to tell a similar
story like I did with Josiah, where it's like I, I got to see
one of the first Mantis kids really, really early on.

(20:05):
The only reason that was happening was because I was
making content that was specificto my local area because that's
all I had access to. So do that, just support your
local area, blow it up, and thenyou now have all these
connections with those people ifthey start climbing the ladder,
if they start doing crazy shit. Damn that was good.
That field just came bombing down that hill.

(20:25):
Dude that was insane, sorry. Now I'm hoping they pick that
up. That was nice.
But yeah, you, you're now with that group of people, you're
with them. So either you're going to go
further and you're going to bring all your friends with you
to as you, as you come through that climb, or one of your
friends is going to go through that climb and you're going to
come with them. So if you're doing this now to

(20:47):
hope for success later, you justhave to, you have to do it.
You can't just stop and then expect someone's going to call
you 3 years from now, be like, hey, I remember you used to make
content three years ago. Do you want to do it again?
It doesn't really happen. If you're doing content now,
then people are going to be like, oh, I know a due to the
podcast, like let's let's get him to do that thing or I want
to announce this thing. So and I like the stories of the

(21:09):
people I've never heard of. That's more interesting to me.
I would agree with that myself, and the one point I would add to
that as well is kind of along the lines, but all of the local
people and the nobodies per SE that you would be interviewing.
You never know who the next James Dean is, bro.
That podcast is going to be there forever.

(21:29):
And as soon as he's big, all of those people are going to want
to go watch all of the old time stuff too.
So I've seen where I've recordedwith somebody and then you've
recorded with them later and then my views go up again after
yours or, and I'm sure vice versa, where I, you know, you've
recorded and then I've jumped onafter people go back and look

(21:50):
like, oh, that was cool. I want to see what else they've
done. I I've done a big push right now
on pro spec and a few people like I just want to hear from
the pros. I'm like, no, I don't care.
It's my show now. Like I want to tell their
stories because some of one of these drivers is our next
champion. It's going to happen.
May not be in the next 5 years, 10 years, whatever.
I may not even be doing this when it.
Happens. Who do you think it'll be?

(22:13):
Right now, Cameron Sorensen, like after seeing him drive, I
would agree with that actually, but he's.
Becoming an animal. Shelley Hansen came out of the
gate crazy strong. Like she's driving, she's
driving incredible. I don't know.
But like it's, it's tough to say.
I think of the drivers that are like in the pool right now.

(22:33):
Conor O'Sullivan really comes tomind.
His progression over like he's only been what, four years in
drifting and this dude's in pro in four years, maybe 5, maybe 6,
I don't know. But very short period of time
he's in pro and he's driving like a madman already.
Long Beach is a bit rough on him.
But like, go watch practice. Practice is your indicator of
somebody's ability. The competition is their ability

(22:57):
to keep their shit together. He needs to work on that bit I.
Dude, I was going to bring that up too because you, you called
him out last night literally on dude, you set it live, baby,
it's there. Go watch it.
You see, he's going to choke himself up or.
What he's going to lose is he's.Going to take himself.
That's exactly what he did. But then his second run, he
dialed it back 5%. He was incredible.

(23:17):
So it's one of those, I mean, look it.
We love you the whole. Family is incredible, but like
Turk OD Matfield those are threedrivers that are deserving of a
championship and I hope they winone in the night I hope each of
them win one in succession. Cool.
Let's move on to whatever's nextbut for drivers coming up yeah

(23:37):
I, I those are the two that cometo mind right off that's.
I've only seen Cameron Sorenson drive a couple of times on the
Internet, once in person. So it's a big statement, I get
that. But I look at how much support
do they have? How much access to funding do
they have? How much are they driving every
day or every week? Those things to me are what is

(23:59):
going to define their career. There are people who have done
really well that don't have one of those things, but they found
a way to made-up for it, right? James Dean didn't have a lot of
funding, but he drove more than anybody else and then the
funding came and now he still drives more than anybody else.
People forget he did 3 championships three years in a
row right? That's.

(24:20):
Insane. That's mind boggling.
It's just seat time, so. On top of going over to drift
masters and doing everything else that.
He's doing and he he was drivingFD, drift masters and unlike a
Middle Eastern series all at thesame time, but he's driven like
RDS, he's driven all these crazythings.
So those are the three things you need.
You need immense amounts of seattime, a large amount of

(24:41):
financial support. And I mean, there's you can
always put in like inherent ability and things like that,
but you need like general support as well.
You can have all the money in the world to do this, but if you
don't have a team that actually supports and backs you, it
doesn't matter. What would you say from your
perspectives, being able to see all of this?
What are the key like people to have around you?

(25:04):
Like what job roles or however you want to explain that?
Media person No. That is 100%.
True, I I feel like I'm a brokenrecord but I've said this so
many times. If you come and tell me that you
spent $20,000 on an engine but you don't have a media guide, I
will laugh in your face because nobody knows you bought that
engine. That engine means shit if

(25:25):
nobody's taking pictures. Dude, you're you're totally
giving up an amazing title. A $20,000 engine.
Yeah, anything with that it thatmuch zeros in a title is going
to do well. It's yeah, I would say I should
have said $1,000,000, but whatever, it's all good.
Yeah. But to me, a a very passionate

(25:46):
and dedicated media person that doesn't say no to new ideas.
If if you're a media person, you're like, I don't like
TikTok, you're in the wrong gig.No, I hear it all the time.
You're like, yeah, I'm not goingto do TikTok.
All right, cool. Have fun in your career.
I don't like TikTok either, I still post on it.
Yeah, exactly. So that's that's key.
A mentor I think is the next one.

(26:08):
To be honest. I is probably mentor first, a
media, but hey, media person. Media person, yeah.
I get it. I get it.
Having a mentor, having somebodywho can teach you the finances,
can teach you the business of racing, that is probably the
next big one to me. After that, probably an

(26:29):
accountant to be perfectly honest, 'cause.
Just got one of those myself. More, more drivers go broke.
The reason people get out of drifting is because they go
broke. That's it.
And some of it is, yeah, it's a sport.
It's not a spot. It's not a no, no, no.
Listen, if there wasn't enough of that, this shit wouldn't be
happening. It's there.
Just you're putting your money in weird places, you're spending

(26:49):
it in the wrong places. You don't know how to do tax
write offs correctly. You're not paying yourself.
You're going broke. That's why you're out of the
sport. I'm not going to name names.
It happens all the time. Oh yeah, it's happening right
now. You all know you could all
probably think of one yourself. Yeah, I mean, look basically
look at anybody who's been in FDin the last five years, it's not
here anymore, correct. Very good chance they went this

(27:10):
financially doesn't make sense. Maybe not broke, made-up,
bankrupt, but financially doesn't make sense.
After that I would say a a suspension tech really here.
I can see that, but why? Because here drifting in the US,
we're locked in right now with the tread wear of tire that

(27:31):
we've got got these 200 tread wares.
They're great tires. You to be competitive now you
need to understand suspension ina way that is much further above
general understanding, right. If you don't understand rebound
control, if you don't truly understand dampening, if you're
if you want to drive at this level and you're like one way
coilovers are fine. You are so far back already that

(27:54):
if you can learn that in grass roots or in Pro AM, you're so
much further when you get into series that have 100 treadwear,
you know all the European stuff.I've I'm in a very unique
position right now where I'm actively talking to everybody in
drift masters and everybody in FD on a very regular basis.
That is my day-to-day conversation right now.

(28:15):
Drivers there, drivers here. So I'm very quickly
understanding all the differences and all the
similarities between the two sports in the competition level.
Those tires and drift masters are just super glued to the
track. Those drivers generally are not
tuning their suspension the way that the FD drivers are because
they don't have to. A5 PSI difference in the tire.

(28:37):
There is everything here. These guys, almost everybody's
running a very similar tire pressure because that's the
lowest pressure they can run without D beating.
I talked to GT, Kenda, Nitto, any of the drivers on GT
generally within two to three PSI are running the same
pressure. Kenda drivers basically the
same. Nitto basically the same.
Well then from your perspective,what what?

(28:59):
How do you visualize FD and drift masters separately?
Like which one do you prefer? Is that I can't.
I know the clickbait is. Strong on this one.
I'm sorry, but I get it. I expect the.
Hustle. But seriously from like exclude
the job title and everything that you have, What is your
perspective on FD versus versus drift masters?

(29:20):
Because a lot of people will sayDrift Masters is more exciting
and like visually entertaining, but we're in a capitalist
economy here and a very professional, so it's not very
showy. All of the complaints that N
Americans have about FD are the same complaints that Europeans
have about drift. Masters, thank you.

(29:42):
I knew it. Everybody right now I mean to to
show the saucers made we're recording this on the Friday at
pro spec. It's hard to time stamp it.
Oh, you're good, but a lot of people are upset about the Rad
Dan Briquette call from last night.
I'm not going to get into politics.
I'll let Reese do his video on that.
But the judging and all these guys suck.
All this stuff. If you go over and read comments
from drift masters, those same arguments happen about the drift

(30:04):
masters judges. Fun fact, we share a judge.
The people are like drift masters judging is so much
better. It's so much better.
Like Vernon is the same judge from.
Both and. He agreed across on almost all
the calls. I think there was 2 where he
fought differently. But like I it's just, it's just

(30:25):
funny. And then people in Europe are
like all the Americans, just they have so much more funding.
There's so much more money there.
They can get such better sponsors.
Come over here like, oh, look atdrift masks.
Look at they got Red Bull. Like we have Monster and
Rockstar, like the same arguments we're having here,
they're having over there and they look at FD and go FDS got
their shit together. Their judging is better, their
show is better, their announcersare better.

(30:46):
Like whatever. Like it's just a whole bunch of
pointy fingers. Just everything is better.
The grass is always greener on the other side.
That's exactly what it is, the different.
Verification. Yeah, No.
That's all it is. The drifting is from the top
level is basically the same whenyou get down to the granular,
it's very different. So top level, I think almost

(31:07):
anybody from drift masters can come over to FD, adapt, do well.
I think almost anybody from FD go to drift masters adapt and do
well. Truly think that.
Look at Adam LZ, he's he's floated between both them.
He not a problem. Josiah yeah, I mean Josiah
struggled due to engine issues, but I mean he was a a pro spec
driver here, came over, you know, came over to drift Masters

(31:27):
struggled a lot of that was justcrazy engine in sourcing trying
to trying to maintain an LS in Europe is not easy.
Yeah. So I would assume so cool
program though. But James Dean dominates there,
dominates here like there is crossover.
Connor Shanahan, Jack Shanahan, Connor won a championship and
Drift Masters comes over here crushes didn't win a
championship, still top 10. So I think it shows that the

(31:49):
crossover is there over there. You have to trust the tires and
and set the car up for those tires, which are crazy sticky
here. The tires aren't as sticky, but
you need to know suspension better to get the most out of
our tires. So there's just, it's just
differences. We have access to certain parts
and companies faster, so we can repair things quicker.

(32:09):
Because you can get like overnight you.
Yeah, you need an overnight transmission.
You can call Drift HQ. Someone's going to put one in a
truck and drive it to you. I don't know if they actually do
that, but I'm just saying that like you can you.
But I've they'll get it to you pretty.
Quick, dude, their trailer over there is full of parts I've seen
like people from the paddock right now go in there like, yo,
do you have this right? That doesn't exist in Europe to

(32:32):
the same degree because now you're dealing with all these
different countries and borders and stuff.
So it's just, it's just different, but it's the same.
They have different struggles. We have different struggles.
Both shows are amazing and I think you shouldn't fight, you
should support both because if one goes out it's it's not going
to look good on drifting as a whole.

(32:53):
We need drifting to look as goodas possible for as long as
possible to grow it right. Absolutely.
For all, for all of us, for you,for me, like.
None of our careers continue without it.
Exactly like. The P1 podcast, which is a
Formula One, these guys are doing pretty good.
I mean, they're, they're making some good money.
They got some big sponsors on board.

(33:14):
It's because F1 is massive. There's NASCAR podcasts where
those podcasters are making morethan the announcers on the
official sport, right? And to top on that, like this is
still a formula series branded as that, yeah.
So we we kind of have to keep upthat standard as well.
But I mean, they're masters. That's fair.

(33:34):
Anyway, well, before I let you go, because again, I don't want
to take, I take up so much. I got to Snoop.
Yeah. Was there anything that you want
to announce or bring up about FDfor the future or anything going
on with you? For for the future of FD,

(33:56):
there's some really cool shit inthe works.
I think next year, if you've been waiting for changes, I
think next year is going to be it.
I think it's probably the best way to like put it, yeah, next
year is going to be, in my opinion, it's going to be a very
different year. I can't say why, maybe off air.
Off air. I'm trying to think of the best
way to put the show the show theshow itself.

(34:19):
Is online presence or both? OK, cool.
Yeah. Cool.
Yeah, there's. I won't ask you no more than.
That I'll tell you offline, but there's a bunch of stuff that's
like waiting on signatures that will change a lot of next year
in a really cool way yeah So notI'm not saying get through this
year but like appreciate everything right now appreciate

(34:42):
all of this because there's somethings that next year won't be
there but some cooler things aregoing to come into his place
yeah that's. Exciting.
On my side of things, I'm going to make it a bunch of content
around the differences between FD and Drift Masters.
I got permission from Drift masters to record there.
I already do some vlogging stuffhere.

(35:05):
Sick little key. Drop dude, I love those.
So if you want to check that out, Jacob Gettins on YouTube,
Instagram, all that stuff, you can check that out.
But yeah, I want to. I want to do more comparisons
between the sports, specific topics, judges, car setups,
pits, what they eat, shit like that.
People love food stuff. I don't know why I'm going to do

(35:25):
more content around that. Keep an eye out.
I'm going to have a lot more free time coming up soon, so
I'll tell you about that off airtoo.
Got all the secrets? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, just just, you know, just, but it what it means is
that I'll be able to focus on this other podcast.
If you do want to check out, there's one episode out that we
recorded, I think six months ago.

(35:46):
It's called the you know how youhave to have one episode to
publish to an RSS feed like, youknow, when you, you know, you
need to have one. So I recorded one just to do it.
The show is called the NortheastThing.
So letter N letter E thing podcast.
No one had that dude. I'm shocked.
That's actually. Kind of.
Funny, yeah, so you can check that out.
The logo's in teals so it's instantly.

(36:07):
Recognizable. There you go.
But yeah, you can check that out.
I've got a couple of cool peoplelined up to to go do that, but I
just need to get some free time and that'll that'll be coming up
right after Spain. I got a week off or I have
nothing planned. So I'm just going to, I'm
probably going to go crank out that stuff.
Hell yeah, man, I'm excited for you.
Yeah, dude. Thanks man.
That's awesome. Absolutely dude.
You're always welcome you. Don't say that I'll be on every

(36:29):
week. Come on with it.
Oh, that's so cool, dude. Well, I don't want to hold you
up no more. I really appreciate it bro.
Man, you go have fun. I will.
And don't get too much hate online.
Nah, that's fine. I'm dealing with.
It live streaming Ichio live. Yeah, that's all good.
Thanks guys. Yo, dude, when's your first
event? I think it's in, Like I think

(36:55):
it's in two weeks, something like that.
But dude, have you even ordered tires yet?
Oh my God, you're right, dude. Thanks for that reminder.
I got to do that. Yeah, no problem, man.
Have you tried the Zec Novas yet?
I mean, I've been tossing aroundthe idea of doing that, but I
think realistically, I'm just going to buy some cheap Walmart
tires like I usually do. No.
OK, No, we're not doing that. You've had plenty of seat time

(37:15):
by now. You need proper tires.
But what do you mean proper tires?
Well, what I mean by proper tires is like, better grip, more
consistency, longer life, and asweird as it sounds, even smells
better. But bro, there's so much more
expensive. Just use the circle drift code.
It's like 20. Listen off yo wait, really?
But what what do I do for the next event?

(37:36):
Well, then just use it again. I mean you can literally use it
all season if you want. Well shit, you ain't going to
tell me twice. I'm going to do that.
Same goes for you too if you're looking to get your tires before
the 1st event. Maybe it's coming up quick drop
down below to the link to Zic Nova tires and use the code
circle adrift to get 20% off. Here we are again new new face
to the podcast. Of course.

(37:57):
Is it? I got to ask this how to
pronounce it correctly. Vasily.
Yes, yes OK cool. I'm so bad with names dude.
Ohh. Especially like mine, for sure.
It's always hard for the big like American people.
For Americans, yeah. So, well, you're out here for a
good life side of things. So how are we doing this
weekend? Cars going OK, all that stuff.

(38:19):
Yeah. So we're here with FCP ever
without the drift car, the firstnot, not first in the world, but
professionally built like pro car.
We originally built it to do prospect and we did the pro am
of it last year. So it's a full carbon Kevlar
body A5 with our S5 body and using the VR6 engine out of the

(38:43):
Golf R32. What the hell?
Yeah, We. I didn't even know that.
Yes, I OK, so I used to have a Jetta Jill, one of my favorite
cars I've ever had in my life. And it I it was kind of a pile
dude. I bought it from was not the
best mechanic so on and so forthbut dude, I will miss that car

(39:04):
to the day I die because of thatmotor.
The VR6 was amazing. So actually before you go too
deep on that, before anyone thatdoesn't understand the VR sixes,
what is so special about them? Why are they different and why
are did you choose to go with that platform, I guess?
Well, first of all we built likeoriginally we have a shop in

(39:25):
Canada, TSH. After we do maintenance on the
German cars and mainly on the Audi.
So when we decide to build like pro car different from everybody
else, we just want to keep originally with the same engine
platform. Volkswagen and Audi is the same
group. Also this engine comes on the
sum of Q7, the older ones. So it's kind of chassis, not

(39:49):
chassis, but the brand related. And when we come, if we come for
FD and do prospects so we can put on the list the Audi.
That's perfect. Yeah, dude, it's so wait,
aren't. Aren't they all front wheel
drive though the VR sixes or wasthere some cars they came rear
wheel? This engine will also come in a

(40:10):
all to RX all-wheel drive too and it was longitudinal too.
So I originally Volkswagen create not create but they
utilize diesel block. For front wheel drive.
Application because they can fit3.2 liter, 2.8 liter into front
wheel drive car. That's.

(40:32):
If you're, you know, like, yeah,yeah, it's very small form
factor like 4 cylinder length, but you got the six cylinder.
Yeah, the motor's tiny and it's like a it's.
They're 15. Degrees. 15.
Degrees, OK, yeah, yeah. So that's why is it that V
series or whatever. One cylinder hat.
That's so like. 4 cylinder engine, but we have 6 cylinders

(40:55):
on that. How much power is that thing
pushing now? Right now the car makes 800
wheels. Just comfortably.
Yes, it's OK. It's a fully built engine in
house. We have machine shop and
everything. So it's a try sum.
It's a 3.2 liter with 10.7 compression ratio with Garth

(41:17):
351050 on that. Jesus, man, that's such a cool
build, especially seeing it out here.
Obviously FTS intertwined so youget that kind of like
competition side spectators looking at it and they're like,
I don't even, I don't understandany of it.
Have you gotten some pretty crazy reactions over there?
Well, yes, even like last year, we was doing lots of great life,

(41:40):
Lime Rock, Laguna SEC, our competition, and people always
come back because when they hearit on the track, they hear it's
not Jay-Z, it's not RB. It sounds something like
different. That's why they always come and
wondering what the engine is in it and nobody can guess this out
of like you can go to the junkyard and get this engine for

(42:02):
like 500 bucks out of Toorak. Yeah, yeah, literally.
They're not that expensive at all.
They're just a little bit harderto find.
Here is the only problem. No really, because as I said,
like the cold 432 engine will behard to find, but something like
an SUV? Oh, OK, yeah.
Yes, I guess that is to store X.There was plenty of them.

(42:23):
Even now they still making the three-point six VR6 engine.
So even new Cayenne comes with 3.6 and it's a VR6 engine there.
Are they any? Is there any difference in them
like in? Well, they change a little bit
the angle in between them just to make more displacement,
because for they start using this engine more for SUV's and

(42:45):
they need displacement to move this.
Like heavy car. So sick, dude.
Damn. OK.
And then so you mentioned FCP Euro.
I know you're here with them. How are they intertwined with
your program and what you've gotgoing on?
Or are you working directly withthem?
We're working with them last year.
They come to us because we're we're also start our drifting

(43:07):
like life building cars from Porsche Cayenne drift this.
Year. Oh yeah, we're going to get to
that. We get into that for sure.
Yeah, like I knew a new marketing manager from a
previous company he used to workwith and we decided like they
was doing the great life and they used to work with Michael

(43:28):
Lesser before was in the drifting to want to come back
but they don't know who we are. Basically we got together a
couple of meals. It was late in the season too
decide to do first event together and the yeah like I
don't know, they happy with us doing that I think now yeah,

(43:49):
yes. Well for anyone out there that
is due to the European market and stuff.
How has FCP Euro benefited not just European market but
drifting and Motorsports in general?
Like what all do they provide? What chassis do they focus on
specifically? What FCP ever is basically your
online store for DIY Rs who is doing the work at home on their

(44:14):
own cars. If you need the regional parts
replacements parts with a good branding, the the most popular
they do in as well the packages.So if you want to do like oil
change, for example, some transmission service, they
provide you a package with all seals and everything.
So you don't have to think. You just go online.

(44:34):
You enter your car, you have year of May and it gives you
options where you can choose packages, not only one single
part that's. Cool.
Yeah. Is it almost like OEM plus style
parts? Exactly.
It's not performance, but they also have suspension performance
parts and our small stuff in performance world.

(44:59):
But originally they just providethe parts for the Iwires.
Mostly. And what parts are you usually
running on your cars from the well?
We have a lot of like throttle body.
Every kind of everything in the catalog.
Springs we we run the European like cars and also because we
shop, we have accounts with themand we wore their parts for the

(45:21):
shop and we sell it for. The customers and that's it.
Just works all the way around. Hell yeah.
Well, like you mentioned, the Porsche, we got to talk about
that a little bit because probably, I would say arguably
the most unique drift car I've seen in the past five years.
Yeah, it's only one drift SUV inthe world.
Ever. Yeah, there is the people who

(45:44):
drift SU, not SU VS but I mean cars, wagons.
Trucks right there. Is a van I think in the year of
somewhere, but nobody built SUV like before this.
We started building this car. I wasn't into the drifting.
I was in the car audio stuff andalways want when I moved here in

(46:06):
to Canada, I always want to build the car with a less I'm
like and I wasn't I think we want to build like burnout car
first, but also want to make it slam.
So we start working on that, putting a less in it with them
after transmission and I wanna slam like really low.

(46:27):
So it looks like almost like a value.
Yeah. Yes.
So Josiah is a MDF ray shop. He's local to us, two hours
away. Only two hours.
Yes, that's incredible. That's the thing, cars drifts
the way they drift because of FDF.

(46:47):
If not the Josiah brand behind that, I don't think it would be
possible. How much angle does those cars
even make from the factory? It's probably.
I am because it's not just the. Geometry of it.
The geometry's gonna be trash. SUV is the an all-wheel drive.
It's like probably, I don't know, like 28, maybe degrees
something. Like that?

(47:08):
Awful. Right.
And so I, I figure out he was local to me.
I started bothering him to make a drop knuckle for me.
And then out of that he add a little bit angle to that and
kind of through this project, the wolf in the drift car.
But by the time we was building,we didn't know if it's gonna

(47:30):
work. It's not.
Yeah, So what hiccups did y'all run into as y'all were
developing the kits and stuff for it?
Yes, well one all the kind. I drop all stuff like stock
knuckles and everything but that's cayenne in the front is
very similar to 350Z. Really.
Yeah, so. So did y'all just kind of like

(47:51):
hold up AZ kit to kind of formalize what it would look
like or? How did the process of?
Designing it go. We we took apart the original
stuff. Arms, front subframe, top mounts
for upper control, arms, knuckles.
He got scanned everything, put it all together in the cat.
So he's just working it up in the computer.

(48:13):
That's and he's looking the geometry and also dropping the
knuckles. So like because to make it right
on the drift car, you cannot just like shorten the knuckle
right? Because the best option for that
will be to lift your wheel up. But also looking at all other
factors right now I understand that more.

(48:35):
But because I'm talking with hima lot about suspension, he is
helping to tune all the cars. But when we started, I didn't
know that much. And when I come to him, I'm
like, oh, OK. It's because the first, my first
idea was like, maybe we'll make it ourself.
Because lucky me, we found Josiah and yeah, he was local.

(48:57):
So it's I bother him a lot. But yeah, he helps.
Yeah. Well, as far as the rear goes,
what does the rear suspension look like from the factory
compared to like your normal Z or something like that?
Is it? The Porsche Canyon in the rear
is kind of multi link suspensionsimilar to.
Beam. Behind only it has the shocks

(49:18):
not mounting to the body. It mount on the second subframe
so you can pull out the rear subframe with all arms and
everything on. It that and the.
Shocks. Nice.
OK, yeah, yeah, yeah. But those?
Arms I made myself just use the pipe and the heims from here
just bend and make adjustable because it's not that

(49:42):
complicated. Just need to see if it clears or
not because Cayenne is now 9 inches lower than stock 1.
Dude that's fucking incredible. What?
OK, what collovers and stuff areyou running on now?
What did you have to get or werethose custom?
Yeah, no, it's a it's a scale suspension as well.

(50:02):
Like Canadian company help us, they they make lots of like okay
let me say this way because Porsche Cayenne has the issue
with air struts and lots of companies makes the air strut
replacement of the regular spring ones.
So they already have the design kit for the Cayenne.

(50:25):
For the regular. And I asked them to make it
extra slam low and that's it. Just give me a dumped one, take
5 inches off of it. Yeah.
And the front, front spring, great.
I think it's around 30 kilograms.
Oh my God, what is that? What is that equate to?
To like, I guess pounds or whatever, the Americanized

(50:47):
version. Yeah, I don't know.
I think all the springs they just rate like this.
Or is it? Yeah, No, we're just dumb.
We just don't say kilograms. We just say K yes.
Yeah, 30. Yeah, exactly.
Sorry. I just proved that whole theory
of being dumb. My bad.
I didn't make us look very good.Oh well, yeah.
So it's very stiff. 30K. Yes, in the front and 19 in the

(51:11):
rear. I can't even think of another
car that would need that stiff of a.
Spring well all double wishboneslike cars need stiff in the
front right? Because our Audi Pro car run 24
in the front. That's fair.
Probably you're pretty busy too.Well, no, I run about 15K16 K in
the front. It's really not.
I do need to go up just a littlebit, maybe to 1820, but.

(51:34):
Our audio like competition car in front 24.
Dude, that's what is the rear at.
Rear is 19 on the Cayenne and 5000 but it's £4800.
OK, that's my next question. How much does the whole thing
weigh? That's a lot of weight, dude.
It's all four seats too 4. Seats cage.

(51:56):
Have you? Waited within filled seats.
No, I would never wait with the passengers but like without.
Passengers. 4800 lbs. Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Oh sorry, so we weighed it's £4800.
So you would probably guess 48. Oh. 50 three 5400 lbs. 1000 lbs

(52:25):
probably before passengers. That's insane.
And it was slamming this thing last year at Laguna second.
So does it like does it have a lot of squat I assume?
No, no, because just. Because of the spring rates, OK,
it's so it's pretty loose in therear I would assume then, right?
Competition car. Just a fun car party.
It has a full stereo to in it. You still got AC in it.

(52:47):
No, no AC. That's the last swap.
Right. That's right.
So we have a less 2 stock bottomman supercharger higher like
it's 11 compression ratio with A7 PSI boost making 530 wheels.
Damn and BMW transmission, 335 transmission and the stock rear

(53:09):
end. So stock diff.
And stock axles. What's the ratio on those discs?
No, we put like the one with 4.3, so it's really high.
And it's easy to drive in this case.
That's so cool, I love seeing itout.
There like average four people no problem.

(53:30):
That's what we usually do, like fill it up with seats and just.
Go. That's got to be a whole
experience doing four people. I've never personally had a car
that does that, but I've been ina car that has four seats and
it's through being a back seat is nuts.
For sure the weird seats you feel it like cars are meant
going in the front. Yeah, you feel all the bumps,
everything. But it feels a lot of people

(53:52):
could drove it because I don't drive, I just enjoy building
stuff. Weird.
Stuff, but a lot of people who drove it say that feels exactly
as AG 37 because it has the samewheelbase.
Wow. It's 112 inches.
Same wheelbase as G57, just the heavier.

(54:14):
Dude that's so crazy. What the what size wheels and
stuff are you? Do you have to run on that?
We drive from twenty of those. That's so big.
Those are on my truck right now,around 22 my tires.
IS 255-3022. Holy shit.

(54:35):
Very cheap. I mean it's still cheap.
You still find Iron Man's or something like that for 100
bucks a tire? That just blew my fucking mind,
Oh my God. So has anyone ever approached
you to like build one of these for them?
Well, they've the people asking like for the angle kit and
everything and I refer Josiah right away, like to go FDA, but
nobody. Nobody's been done it.

(54:57):
Yes, yes. Oh man, that's kind of feel good
on your part then, right? Oh yeah.
But that's, I think one of the guy messaged me, he's building
some Infinity or something SUV and he said that's or yes, we're
working on the new project, but it's still secret.
But it's SUV too. So another SUV is covering SUV.

(55:20):
Can you give away the manufacturer?
No, I cannot. It'll give away.
Somewhere around full so I can now degroup the.
Keep an eye out, that's what. Yeah, Yeah.
When can we expect that probablywhy, or at least to know about
it we're. Trying to finish before Lime
rock not maybe not drivable. We'll see it because it's going

(55:43):
to be very complicated because we're going to use a direct
injection engine. So like it's a lot of and it's
going to be on turbo Amic with HP transmission.
And we cannot really say nothingbecause this build is going to
go to FCP here channel. So we're building together in
this project. Will end up at Sima.
I don't know. We'll see it possibly.

(56:06):
Yes, that'd be cool if it did, man.
Yeah, we'll want to drive it, but like, we'll, we'll see how
it goes. Yeah.
Well, is there any chassis that you would hope to visit in the
future and do something wild with other than what you guys
already have planned? Well, we're like weird stuff, so
and we're trying to keep the Audi Volkswagen platform

(56:27):
eventually maybe for our A5, just the newer generation of
that. But I always, yeah, like look
into something different. Yeah.
Oh yeah. Well, the one thing that I want
to ask, given that you from a different country offer a
different perspective from your point of view, what's what

(56:47):
chassis or what basic car would you suggest anyone trying to get
into drifting? Because here we're obviously
going to say 350Z or C6C5 Corvette, yeah.
So, but it's in Canada, it will be the same.
Same thing for 50. Z that's the easiest thing you
can do. You go FDF, buy angle kit, you

(57:07):
go like BC racing scale suspend doesn't matter like because you
didn't say E36 something cheap. Well, if it is 6 from where I am
in Canada, like you're not gonnafind the good like really good
condition. It's a.
Roughly, yeah, like I would say 370 maybe, but it's still on the
higher side for the price and the Corvettes in Canada and on

(57:29):
the higher side of the price. But if it like you don't need to
do something with the power, butif 46 maybe E9C is not as good
on the rear suspension, I think so you need to work with that
more. But yeah, like the the best out
of the best chassis probably if you even want to compete kind of

(57:50):
start E46 maybe. E46 OK yeah I've been actually
bugging him. He's just got an E46 and I'm
like he's got a Mustang that he's in the middle of throwing a
new motor in and all this nonsense.
I'm like bro you've got like 5 events, build the E46 to do
simple drifting and go have. Fun it depends on the level on

(58:12):
the power. 46A46A46 probably will be low on the power
Corvettes for sure beat them butthe last being in it.
But 350Z probably the best balance I would say like V6
engine and that. Oh.
Yeah, I would say Audi, but it'sall-wheel drive, right?
So a little bit more work if youlike, If you know how to work on

(58:35):
the car, you can make anything. More considerable, yeah.
So since you're you're so heavily into the European market
and European chassis motors all that, what made you want to dive
so heavy into LS stuff once you got over to Canada in the States
and stuff? When I used to live, like in my
country, I always was watching LSS and coming here.

(58:55):
That's the easiest to do right? Like the European engines will
be more complicated to build. It just was always the dream
back home looking. We couldn't find any LS's back
home. You.
Know so that's why I was on my bucket list to do once.
Just like how we glorify SRS andstuff.
Yes, yeah. But we're building in our A5 of

(59:17):
LS just like a practice car. So it has ALS 2 and a engine
making 450 wheels, front rod T56and the Cayenne diff because we
have plenty of them. Oh, that's perfect.
It's it's funny that like when you just have a hodgepodge of
shit, you end up making something work, man.

(59:39):
Because we were. Parking out of the cars too and
we have plenty of them from Q7 and Cayenne and they're really
cheap to fit for. They take probably is going to
be more expensive than this. And I know from being like
abusing 3 years Cayenne with thefour people and the waiting
above of like, yeah, it's being heavy, it's holding up.

(01:00:02):
It's the same diff since day one.
That's incredible actually. Well, is there anything else
that you want to make sure that you specify on for not only your
program, but any of your sponsors or any events coming up
that is very special? We don't have like crazy
sponsors, but we're trying to always do more when the people

(01:00:22):
ask and ask the sponsors what they want.
Just make sure we deliver more than ask.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Never oversell under deliver, I get that.
Yes, and never be shy to try come and talk to the people.
And then in my case I think the best option is always face to
face because emails or somethinglike that never works.

(01:00:45):
Just go to the shows, see the companies, talk to the people
that makes the best impression about you.
Absolutely, I would agree. The same concept I work with, SO
hell yeah man. Well, you got.
What's the next event for you? Next one we're going to do Lake
Erie Pro AM OK with Audi and maybe a formal drift Pro Bro

(01:01:08):
down with a Cayenne. Nice, nice.
Oh yeah. Yeah, we're probably going to do
Great Life, Lime Rock, Laguna SEC as well this year with FCP.
And yeah, we're trying to do as much as we can.
Just keep venturing out. Yes, I get it, man.
Well, hell yeah. I really appreciate it.
Do you want to shout out any of your sponsors just like Hardcore

(01:01:29):
Shout? Out to the FCP ever Thanks for
believing in us as well as FDF Race shop and all other company
who supports in US. Hell yeah, man.
Well, I want to say thank you again for taking time out.
Thank you. This was absolutely.
Awesome. Yeah, man, good unique
perspective. I love this dude.
Always love to hear a good storyso I really appreciate it.

(01:01:51):
I hope you have a good rest of your weekend man.
You too. Thank you.
Well, anyways, we have a, if youwere around that long ago, a
familiar face. But Matt Tolman, it's good to
see you, man. How we feeling?
Good, good. A little frustrated because I am
on Dan's team and you know what happened, happened, but moving
on from it. But it's drifting, and either

(01:02:14):
way, we're having a good time. Yeah.
What's your perspective of it? How do you feel about it?
It's just my main thing is that like we're drifting is now we
need more than judges. We need telemetry data to give a
base or if they're unsure or something.
Because like it's just to that point where it's so competitive
to where they need to have telemetry involved like Drift

(01:02:34):
Masters does and some other series do.
Because like I see what they're saying, but like the overall
outcome, like it's purely obvious.
But like, again, like there was both mistakes on both sides.
But either way, you know, like everybody's competitive here and
like, it's just, it's, it's mindboggling to think like they

(01:02:56):
expect certain things that are almost nearly impossible.
And it's, it's, it's so different when you're in the car
and as a driver seeing it, it's like I, I, I, I understand, I
understand. And like, they tell us things
and then, you know, they'll tellus the opposite too sometimes.
And then they'll judge the in the same event, they'll judge

(01:03:17):
another call the way it should have went for us, but not for
somebody else, you know what I mean?
Or vice versa. Like it's just like
inconsistent. I think we need consistency.
And again, there's no hate to the judges or anything.
Like I don't, we don't hate anybody or like we're allowed to
be frustrated, you know? We're allowed to be frustrated,
you know? If they think.
It's right, you think it's wrong, or vice versa.
Like again, like we're allowed to feel the way we feel.

(01:03:39):
That makes sense. Absolutely, and obviously you
should be able to to be able to talk to them like you guys are
doing, which is great. I love that they actually offer
that you guys can come and Duke it out a little bit.
You know, I'm sure there should be a whole comedy show about it
2. Weeks ago on my program,
literally basically the same scenario happened.

(01:04:00):
Oh no. And you know, and Dan is one of
the judges there, but I wasn't mad at him and the two of the
judges voted against me. But like, it was a call that was
like probably the most obvious thing in history of anything in
a battle. They gave the one to him.
And I was very upset. And I went and also spoke to the

(01:04:20):
judges immediately in a loud fashion, but.
So, OK, then explain a little bit on the driver's side of
that, because a lot of the viewers out there, they see that
and they they may think of it, he's just complaining.
But like it's like from our end,we don't, they don't really see
the full extent and cost of whatthis takes and how much that

(01:04:42):
hurts. First things first, like I have
not driven the level of these pro one cars.
I'm like a few levels down, obviously, but like mine's
pretty competitive It it happensin in every level of drifting.
It's like in probably what happened with me.
Like they'll expect something and they'll see something and
they'll DMS that fault or like they get rid about it, but we're

(01:05:04):
just like, no, like This is why this happened.
And then we tell them that afterthe fact, it's obviously way too
late and they go OK or no, you're wrong.
We still think you're wrong or vice, you know, like all that
kind of stuff. And then same with Dan.
Like this, this, this layout, this year's is different and
like no one has nailed it yet. And you know what happened?

(01:05:26):
What they said the main factor is why he lost was was choking
off the chase driver, but the chase driver had three or four
car lengths of a gap and Dan wasalready lit off on the gas and
he was still waiting to get on the gas.
So it's obviously not a factor. And like these are small little
things of a driver of a driver on driver whoever knows about

(01:05:47):
how it really is, how it feels to understand where the driver
comes from compared to the judges.
But. I mean, it just, it just feels
like you're pissing away so muchmoney whenever that stuff like
that happens. No matter.
What level? This stuff is expensive.
Even with sponsors, it's expensive and you have a budget
and you got to be in it. And like from From for fun, it's
expensive like minimal. Anybody who goes drifting that's

(01:06:08):
not in AZ, you're spending 1000 bucks plus a weekend for fun and
then you get the pro AM and you're spending way more than
pro spec and then pro. And then you know, so like
there's so much at stake for every level.
And I think that's why we get soupset or passionate or even in a
positive or a negative way because forget the money.

(01:06:32):
Like the amount of effort and time and energy and just stress
you have to just naturally have to deal with is pretty wild.
Like people that have like friends or like worships I have
or whatever, Like they come intopeople's lives with me or like
even any driver. Like it's almost scary.
It's like, hey, I'm warning you now.

(01:06:53):
This is going to get a little rough sometimes, but we're just
going to continue. But no one understands unless
you talk to somebody that reallydoes it or like you do it
yourself. Absolutely.
Well, from your perspective then, how do you keep yourself
continuing on into all of this, especially Formula Drift, being
tied to it in the pits and as a crew member and everything,

(01:07:16):
you're still chasing the rabbit hole yourself even after seeing
all of the nightmares that it comes along with.
So why? For me, I never would have
thought I would get to my point where I'm at like like in pro am
trying to chase the FD dream. Like if I can go in and just do
a season or two and then prove myself and then it comes to me,
hopefully that's the goal. But even if I'm going to still

(01:07:39):
continue, it's more of an accomplishment just to get to
the level. You know what I mean?
Like, you know, I put too much effort into not continue And so
other people and you know, drivers for example, like Dan
or, or anyone in Pro Warner prospect if they get discouraged
for like 3 days, they'll feel that way and then give it a

(01:08:00):
week, they'll start to loosen up.
But they'll still have that at the back of the head.
But for me, like what happened to me two weeks ago, a pro am
like I appealed it and hopefullyit goes my way.
But for me now I'm going to go round two and drive a complete
Dick. Shorkey said the same thing last
round, last two rounds at Easting because.
They do it same day but like drive sick and just angry and be

(01:08:22):
as consistent as possible and belike OK now what?
Big flick entries. Yeah, just.
Like dominant, that forced me tobe more dominant.
And every person that drives is probably a similar way.
You know, it's just like now it's like, OK, I want to show
you, I don't care what the outcome is.
As far as the program and stuff goes, I know you've brought on

(01:08:44):
several new, new sponsors and stuff like that.
So how has that improved over this year compared to last year,
man, In what ways? Last year I, I had some help
with some sponsors, but this andthen I really proved myself.
But this year in 2025, I'm officially driving for Induka
Racing. And you know, they're in my

(01:09:04):
hometown of Claremont, Florida. And like, I've always wanted to
drive for them and the opportunity arose and I took the
opportunity and I'm driving for them.
They've helped out majorly to make this year possible.
And having the support and the stress relief of doing it myself
is huge. And like just that alone, the,

(01:09:24):
the one lesson to worry about ishuge, obviously financially and
or like parks help or tools thatyou know, to make certain things
in the car fabrication wise or whatever, like just all the help
in the world and they feel like family and they've helped a lot.
And then, you know, obviously like BC Bryan Crowder, like they
help me out my engine stuff and CP Carrillo, like the very, it's

(01:09:45):
a very expensive engine and theyand they fully support me and
that's very huge. I'm glad you've got the engine
sorted because I know just for example, like Ryan Literal has
gone through insane engine issues and now he's got PRP on
the program. I don't know if you saw him out
there yesterday, but dude looks like he has a fucking chip on
his shoulder and he's driving like a monster.

(01:10:07):
It's a very simple situation, but obviously Ryan's on a
different level than me, obviously, but like it's the
same regardless. Like you have all those problems
of parts or engine builders. It's just like that aren't
there. And then you and then you get
someone like PRP or like Brian Kraus.
Hey, man, like we see you have this problem, like we want to
help you do this and then you'regoing to get an engine builder

(01:10:28):
and then you have success. So when you see the success,
it's like, got it. That's why why a lot of sponsors
help people obviously because they want the best in the world
to use their parts and fans and people that want to be like them
use them. And it's just like, OK, if Rad
Dan runs a 3-4 stroker and has 0problems then I'm gonna go buy
one from Dan. Yeah, I should be able to do

(01:10:49):
that too. You know what I mean?
It's just like a revolving door of just like the technology that
literally anybody can get it. It's crazy.
Anybody can get it. We use it.
It's proven and you know it's proven.
So if anyone if anyone was out there looking to do a 2J setup
specifically and they were aboutto get some BC internals, what
would you suggest to them when they're wanting to run say E85

(01:11:12):
push in maybe 7-8 hundred? OK, so like so like my engine
package is really simple and like, you know, even a stock JC
can hold a lot of horsepower. But when you build them, they
can hold you know, you do a so Ido Bryan Carr 625 plus rod CP
Pistons, 9 O compression, ACL race bearings, BC272 cams, stock

(01:11:35):
valves, like my motor can hold valves horsepower no problem.
Like for sure. And it's really simple.
Any Ford Jay-Z can hold from I mean 5 to 1000.
So like somewhere under horsepower, that engine would be
chilling and my motor makes like850 and that motor is like just

(01:11:55):
I mean, I was there some stressors are drifting it, but
like it can take a lot more. So like even if you put a simple
65 plus rod from BC in your car with a good piston and and
proper cams and a good tuner, like you can basically, OK, I
have this turbo in the car like a Garrett G35 cent 50 turbo.
Like I run you can make from 5:00 to close to 8900 horsepower

(01:12:16):
on that turbo owner Jay-Z. So like you can have the
conference level. I'll keep it at six.
OK, now I want seven. OK, now I want a nine. 100 I
need to push it right here just.Like OK, I have the motor for
it. So like it's very open to to
worst part numbers really. You can do whatever you want
with with a Ford Jay-Z, really. That's good, yeah, but.
You really like if you want to find horsepower Jay-Z, you can

(01:12:37):
do a stock motor. But like a built engine just
feels way better because like compression and just like all
that kind of stuff and the ring gap for boost and cams and all
that is like you can tell difference from a stock motor to
a built on motor race motor. Absolutely, yeah.
Do they offer other what all other engine platforms like the
RB and stuff like that too? They do Honda stuff.
I'm not sure. The RB thing I can't confirm or

(01:12:59):
you know, they do the lot. The big thing is now is the,
what's it called, the Polaris like RZR stuff, side by side
stuff. They're really big into that
now. Too.
Really. Oh.
Yeah, huge. And then obviously Honda through
that, that whole industry. Is they have insane to me.
I don't know everything, but they have.
Go from nbc.com and you'll see everything they offer and they
have so many parts and it's. Just yeah, I'm not trying to

(01:13:20):
like choke you up or anything. Being able to know the parts.
I was just curious myself, that's all.
I know they got a lot. Hell yeah.
Well, that's good to. That's good for them and it's
good for you. I'm glad you got some backing
like that on your program because that has got to be one
of the most stressful parts of a.
Competition and it was and now Igo to the events, so I go to the
Dino and like I used to be full of anxiety and now I'm just like

(01:13:43):
just relaxed. I'm also brought up a lot.
To where I can handle myself better.
But like all that mixed into one, it's just like I'm much
more relaxed and it shows. Am I driving?
So that's key. Well, what's the future of this
year look like? What events are you trying to
hit? Is there anything special you
want to bring up? Or I'm just like, I'm really
just focused on pro AM and people are like, Oh yeah, go do

(01:14:04):
grid life, go do that. I'm like, yeah, I could, but
like I was supposed to drive through this grid life and I was
going to and like from prepping the whole for the whole season
for me, my program was like 2 weeks ago and I, you know, then
I had another weekend of doing stuff and then like work and
then FD. So like I didn't want to like
sacrifice Dan's shot because my responsibilities working on his

(01:14:25):
team morally important. So I just didn't drive good
life. So I just decided just to work.
But anyway, basically The thing is like I'm really focusing just
on pro am because I really want my license.
The first round didn't go as planned, but I still have a shot
for sure if I just do my thing. I just want to get to FD just to
accomplish the goal and prove myself.
And there's some in between events kind of in between.

(01:14:46):
But there's nothing like really important.
But like, yeah, main things Pro am because like I'm not going to
risk the car, the car anywhere else unless I'm testing.
I just want to focus on just doing my best, my sponsors in
the Pro Pro am stuff to come here hopefully next year.
Good dude. Arguably those become the most
valuable partnerships, not only the driver but the company as

(01:15:09):
well, because you get such good organic shit out of it.
Man, and like I get asked all the time, how do you get
sponsors? How do you do this?
And I see like a lot of people trying to do it.
It's just like it's very saturated and it's a lot of work
than just post on Instagram backends of phone calls and emails
and plans. Like this whole thing is a lot

(01:15:30):
of work, but I enjoy that part of it too, so.
Hell yeah, dude. Well, I really appreciate it,
man. This is great.
Thanks for stopping by. Crazy.
Yeah, we've got a that Florida trip we got to do a full one
with. Yeah, we'll do that, Yeah, next
two weeks from now, I think the next round.
So we'll do it for sure. Awesome.
Well, yeah, brother. Well, I'll let you get back to
it. Have some fun this weekend.

(01:15:51):
All right, well, we are here with another friendly face to
the podcast, of course. I guess owner of Zeknova or the
operator of Zeknova USA still? Guy in charge of the US, I
guess. You ain't made it into a
percentage yet. You ain't there yet.
No, Yeah, yeah, pretty much. US, but Lewis lands, of course.
You guys don't know NFD, all that stuff, but big supporter of

(01:16:15):
the podcast as always because ofZek Nova.
So how are we doing this weekend?
I know we had some hiccups with the car and everything but.
Yeah, it was good. Unfortunately, we couldn't
finish the new car that we're building for this round.
And basically five days before we came up, we're like, all
right, we got to stop working onthe new car because it's, we

(01:16:36):
might finish it in time, but we don't know the issues that might
come up after you start driving it because every new build is
different. You know, like even though you
try to do the same things, things happen, you know.
So we kind of stopped working onit and got our last year car
ready basically for the most part.

(01:16:58):
And we came to send it basicallythe car we hit the wall
Irwindale and we had a couple ofhits last week at Pro Am in
Florida. So we didn't really get a chance
to align it on a proper machine.So we try to do our best to your
trackside like but caster wasn'treally there.

(01:17:20):
But you know, for the most of itstill learning, you know, trying
to get the car set up to do whatwe wanted to do.
I think one of the things that Ido that I shouldn't be doing is
I try to compensate based on thecar that I have rather than
change the setup on the car. So he drives how I wanted to
drive. But you know, I'm still

(01:17:42):
learning, trying to figure that out, try to do more adjustments
and stuff. Definitely something you got to
learn here. Yeah, yeah, 100%.
And one thing that I noticed like at MLZ when I've been to
the compound and we're like driving the S15 just for fun and
this dude is like making adjustment changes and stuff.
That must miniscule adjustments.So you're like, wait, what?
We're just like trying to, you know, he's driving it for fun

(01:18:05):
and but he basically like made it drive better, you know, and
that's something that really opened up my mind to like, OK,
you know, you got to stop like just trying to drive the car and
like make the car drive better. So, you know, learning, trying
to get better and and try to stay longer here in this
drifting world. Yeah, yeah.
Well, I know we had some mechanical issues, but before

(01:18:27):
that, for anyone that doesn't know, What Car are you building?
Why did you choose to build thatfor FD and everything?
Yeah. So the C6 that we drove last
year when we finished the round at Utah, I wanted to drive West
Coast events, try to bring the Sonoma brand out there to the
West Coast and show people the tires and what they can do.

(01:18:49):
So obviously we couldn't work onthe car because there's a lot of
things that came up that we can make it better on the car.
But the car was on the road and obviously we couldn't really
work on it. So I had a chassis that I had
bought because it was a good price.
And that's when we came up with the idea of all the cars on the
West Coast. Let's start building this, which

(01:19:12):
we did. That was like July last year.
So yeah, it's taking us a while and ultimately the goal was to
the mistakes that we have on this car, fix them on the new
chassis, on the new build obvious since it was a rolling
chassis, we had access to like trans tunnel, like motor mounts.

(01:19:34):
We're not really doing a more a normal motor mount setup like on
on the old car. We're basically bringing the
motor down and and lower and more towards the back.
Yeah, everything. So a lot of like it's like
version 2 of this car essentially.
Cool. So just fixing up all the stuff
you lacked even thinking about or had the knowledge of when you

(01:19:57):
first built it. From what I can remember cuz
there's tons of things that we changed or exhaust was like on
the way whenever we had to pull the trans.
We move the because this car is still front mount radiator, we
move the radiator to the rear tokind of have more room because
the Corvette's pretty crowded onon the engine Bay.

(01:20:18):
So, you know, also helps with having more weight in the back,
which we think it might work better, but it might not.
It's one of those like we got tothat's the other thing.
We didn't want to like rush finish in the car and then come
drive here and like we have no hill.
Yeah, no about. 20 down that hill, man.
Hell no. Yeah, yeah, definitely no.

(01:20:38):
Well, when do you expect to havethat car finished and at least
be able to test it? So the last thing that we did,
we put it on the dyno and we were having crank sensor issues.
It's got a gesso drivers, an LS and from what Freddy was telling
me, like it's a common thing when when you build those
motors. So but again, we had to wait for

(01:21:00):
parts and it was just going to be too crowded it we just have
to move a sensor to the front onand I think once we do that,
take it to the Dino. Hopefully this week we should
have a a final Dino run on that.Car well, that's quick so.
And then hopefully I'm saying we'll go testing next weekend,
but you know how it is. Probably not, but.

(01:21:21):
The following weekend. Let's go for that.
We know how all this goes. Now we're going all in once we
get back and we got to get readybecause I I really want to get
at least like 5 practice sessions on that car, find the
setup be comfortable enough for.Not in the problems, yeah.
Yeah, that's good, dude. Well, let's tackle some of the
problems that you had here. I know we had some clutch

(01:21:43):
failures or not fully clutch failure, but when you came down
that hill you lost it so. Yeah, yeah.
So when before that, that first battle, I felt the clutch a
little weird and I told the guyslike there's something like the
pedal feels different. So before that last run, we went

(01:22:05):
into it, we opened up the, the, the master bled it like do
everything that you're supposed to do for a clutch that might be
feeling different. Everything seemed fine.
There was nothing, no leaks, no nothing.
And we're like, OK, I mean, the,the pedal still feels weird, but
send it. What else are we going to do?
Right? We're not going to drop the
trans. There won't be enough time.

(01:22:28):
So my first run as I go and I initiate pool hydro and put the
clutch pedal just went to the floor.
Completely stay there. But it didn't stay.
So it was like my first thought.I was like, oh shoot, I lost
clutch. That's it.
My battle is over. There's no way I'm going to make

(01:22:48):
it up the keyhole, do the faint and come back down.
There's no way like that. Then I release it and clutch was
still there. It didn't just stay on the
floor. And this is all going as I'm
initiating, going like alien things through my head.
Obviously my CPU was overloaded.It's getting windy here.
Yeah dude, some nightmares in LZWorld Tour holding the canopy

(01:23:12):
down all day. While talking on the podcast,
Yeah. Well, we didn't, no, not while
doing it on the podcast, but yeah, anyway, sorry.
So dude, my processing power waslike, you know, like.
Overload. You got the.
Danger to manifold. Yeah, pretty much.
But clutch was still there. OK, so I it it felt weird but I

(01:23:34):
was like OK, it's still there wecan send it.
That made me run shallow on other three because obviously
like I'm I was thinking too manythings but clutch was still
there. Luckily I was able to finish the
run and we even though we had mistakes, there was nothing
major. So I called my 5 minutes time
out and that's when he clicked. It's like, dude, it's the clutch

(01:23:57):
pedal stop. Like that's why, because it went
way deeper. Like usually when we the stop
was there, it was like this whenI lost it, it's like all the way
to the ground. Damn.
And that's usually there for those that don't know on
Corvette, that slave cylinder, if you don't put a clutch pedal
stop, you overextend the the slave.

(01:24:18):
And so obviously it can lead to failure later on if you just
leave it because we could have sent it like that.
But you have that in the back ofyour head.
You can actually lose like the line just burst and you lose
your whole. Slaves on the inside.
So yeah, it's not fun to just replace.
Yeah, so luckily in those 5 minutes, Simba, one of my crew

(01:24:38):
guys went under, found the thing.
I was like, guys, I'm trying to look for it because they were
waiting for the five minute callso nobody can touch the car.
But since I'm in the inside, I can do whatever I want.
And I'm like trying to look for the little thing.
It's like a rod. And I was like, dude, I can't
find it, but try to hold it so they don't start at 5 minutes.
Because if I find the bolt, it'll be much faster for you to

(01:25:00):
just put it in. Wow.
So as I hold it, hold this like guys, we have to start the 5
minutes. Like hold the give.
Me. Five more seconds.
Trying to find this thing. Well, it's like Simba, you're
gonna have to like jump head on,get a flashlight or something.
So I was already unhooked and they're like, all right, 5
minutes starts, I jump out, Simba jumps in, finds up the rod

(01:25:23):
and then like puts it back on and within 2-3 minutes it was
already all right, it's back on.Like it's good to go at.
Least you were able to get that back.
In there, Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.
And make it back to the line. Yeah, and that's one of the main
things for having a team that works on your car rather than
just like that they come help for the weekend.
Kasimba knew exactly what it wasand how to put it on and how to

(01:25:46):
get it set up. Because if you get somebody else
that have never seen that or never worked on it, it, you
know, those struggle. Like what?
What do you mean a rod on the pedal?
You know, like. To be the difference between
winning and losing 100% a hundred.
Percent. So it's definitely awesome that
I have a team that they work on the car and they also come out
and and help out and it's part of the crew.

(01:26:08):
So yeah, once that happened, we were able to go finish the the
battle and we won that battle luckily thanks to our elite lab,
even though it was it was a little sketchy, but yeah, it's
it's awesome to have a team thatyou can count on.
Definitely that's. Good.
Well, how do things play out after that?
You won that battle and then things kept going on.

(01:26:29):
Yeah, after we won that battle, then we went to top 16.
So we had the little break in between.
We made a couple other changes because one of the things that
what the reason that the rock came off is like it broke out of
it. So even though he put it back
on, it could have like snapped out again.
So he welded it and we did a fewthings and it wasn't enough.

(01:26:51):
As in when you were clutching, the clutch was kind of a little
bit engaged, but nothing that wecouldn't drive.
I felt that, but it was like it was OK, like we can still send
it like that. But we went against Dmitry
Brutsky, which you know, two time champion.
It's it's guys that I looked. At second last night, yeah.

(01:27:12):
Congrats to you by the way. Yeah, for sure.
And then when we we started following him, he was leading
1st and then coming down the hill.
As soon as we start, he goes really slow and I'm like, what's
going on? Like, so I'm like, they're ready
to go going down the hill. And then as we get closer, he

(01:27:32):
just, he turns it lights off. I'm like, oh, shoot.
He's playing the game. I wasn't ready, Yeah.
He plays you like a fiddle. Yeah, yeah.
So it's something that I told meis like, yeah, dude, pros like
they do it all the time. And it's kind of like a welcome
to prospect. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And yeah, definitely learning

(01:27:54):
from it. You know, I don't hold anything
against him. That's the way you got to drive,
you know, win your battles the way you can.
So that definitely threw me completely off.
I was on the inside and I kind of went shallow.
So he gained some ground on me. And then going up on the power
alley, I was coming hot and he did a big slow down, which

(01:28:17):
caused me to slow the car way too much when I was practicing.
And usually I do this that we can hit people on non momentum
zones, but here in Atlanta, the initiation and AutoZone 3 before
you get to it, those are the slow down zones.
So essentially, if you hit somebody there, you're going to

(01:28:39):
be at fault because they are slowing down.
And even if they park, it is, it's really hard to, to tell,
you know, if, if you hit them, because once you hit them, like
that's it. The, the, it's off.
So when I'm practicing, I'm already OK, I can't hit anybody
on those zones because it could be my fault.
So I'm already in the back of myhead, I'm coming in hot.

(01:29:01):
And when I see him slow down, I was like no no, no.
I've got to stay back. Shit, Shit, Yeah.
Where if it would have been on any other zone, I would have
been like, I'll try to time it. So because obviously they're not
going to slow down forever and you can light off and be on that
door, But since this was a slow down zone, I'm like no, no, no,
no, no, I can't hit him, I can'thit him.

(01:29:22):
And by the time he laid off likelost us there a bit and I tried
to catch up for the last the remaining of the run and it.
Was is that a moment that you think that maybe you should have
bent the rule a little or not? I guess it's not a rule, but
what the judges are looking for a little bit just to keep that
proximity and stay in the pocketlike that.
Yeah. Now that after we reviewed it

(01:29:43):
and everything, and Brian, my spotter, he was saying like if
you would have lit off like you wanted to, like not thinking
that it was a momentum zone, youprobably would have stayed on
him or hit him a little bit, like kind of like give him a
push. But you wouldn't have like the
judges wouldn't have hold it against me, but, you know, split
second decisions. Yeah, that's.

(01:30:04):
A live and learn decision of. Course, yeah.
Yeah. But you know, it's it's one of
those things I wish we could practice Atlanta.
It's such a rat track that driving is amazing but we only
get like once a year shot. Yeah.
So are you not doing any laps onthe SIM or anything beforehand?
I have but recognition. Yeah.
So obviously they changed the layout like that.
The new inner clip, it's different.

(01:30:25):
The touch and go, it's not, you know, it's different and I find
myself doing things in the same that I don't do in real life.
Like there's a lot of like like throttling in and out to keep
the car in and drift or whatnot.So I try not to overdo it
because then I'm doing that in real life, which I'm not really

(01:30:48):
supposed to, but it's good for kind of like learning the track
and and figuring things out. It's just like that extra step
of man, I don't know if I shouldbe doing this or not, you know?
It's unique that the SIM world is still so fresh like that that
it's you still have the people walking the line of like.

(01:31:10):
Should I even overdo it too much?
Am I playing too much SIM to where now I'm just adapting my
car to drive like a simulator? It's, I mean, it could work I
guess. We're seeing it from Connor
Falvey and. Stuff like that.
But yeah. I'm I'm always interested to see
how other people use the SIM in their what they prefer to train
their self on before ever even getting to the track.

(01:31:32):
Yeah, yeah. And it's so many senses that you
kind of lose in the same, right.Like it's just like overall, the
sense of speed and, and the way the car feels and if something's
off in the same, the car's always the same.
It's always perfect. You don't have extra variables
or whatnot, but it's definitely.What are you using?

(01:31:52):
So I have a fanatech DD1 or which one's the cheapest, DD1 or
DD2? I think the cheaper DD whatever
it is. DD one out of it, I think.
Yeah, I could be totally wrong on that.
They'll correct this. Yeah, so DD 1 and I think like
the V2 pedals for from Fanatech and I've had it for a while.
I used to do rote racing in it mostly and then I just adapted

(01:32:15):
it for drifting. Actually my hydro is like maybe
like 15 years old or 20 something like.
That damn Something interesting,yeah.
But you know, it's just a hydro.It doesn't really.
It still has though. It's not an it's not an on and
off. It still has like the whole
thing so. I do believe if you upgraded the

(01:32:35):
setup that you have, you would be able to resemble a little bit
better and you probably enjoy ita little bit more as far as
replicating your setup because then you can really dial in
shifter position and wheel position, make sure your pedals
are at the right height and likeall that nonsense that nobody
thinks about. Yeah, definitely.
I definitely use it more for rote racing than drifting.
It's like the what I really liketo drive even though I.

(01:33:00):
Hell you out here? What's up then?
Why the hell you out here? Yeah, yeah.
I don't know dude. I feel like because there's
constant races on same like on Acero or what not that you can
just jump in whenever there's really or I'm not at the level
to compete on SIM drifting essentially.

(01:33:22):
I mean, those guys are. Killing.
It's like, yeah, I'm not eating.Fuck no.
Those dudes are wild. It's insane.
Like what they do, it's like, yeah, I don't know.
It's weird, right? Like you can do it in real life,
but not in the, in the. It's kind of frustrating,
actually. It is very frustrating.
It it took me forever. I think that's just a normal
thing though, yeah. Anyone that starts in a car,

(01:33:43):
you're essentially taking away the majority of senses you use
to even make the drift happen. Yeah, but if you're starting in
a SIM, like you're starting withless senses anyway, so you just
start adding to it. Yeah.
It's like, oh, I have more feedback.
Yeah, I know more of what to do.Yeah, definitely.
That's probably why you always see people that start on the
same can grab a car easy and andlearn right.

(01:34:05):
And you get pro drivers and you throw them on a SIM and they
can't turn a lap. Yeah, it's it's.
Hilarious dude. Especially I'll try and drive
one of the pro cars in the SIM too 'cause they got the whole FD
car pack or whatever. I can't drive a single one of
those at all. It's like it's a whole.
Like there's no the steering's twitchy as fuck.

(01:34:27):
For one it it feels like as soonas you hit any bit of throttle.
It doesn't mean it doesn't matter if I'm in 5th gear or
whatever, it just immediately lights off and kicks me around.
Yeah, I'm like, this is impossible to drive.
You people are crazy. Yeah.
For sure, yeah. Oh, well, as far as Ecnova, is
there anything you're trying to do to improve the brand or
expand it anymore this year? I know it's kind of be kind of

(01:34:49):
hard the way things are, but. Yeah, I had so many plans for
this year and then the tariffs things happen.
So it definitely slowed us down because of the uncertainty, you
know, like, you don't know what's happening.
And it's hard to get people to invest when things are like
that. So ultimately, yeah, we want to

(01:35:13):
keep growing the brand. We want to keep having people
trying the tires, since I feel that's the main thing, right?
Once they try it, it's like, is there a grip that you want to
be? On dude, I'm telling you, most
people that I've gotten to try it once they try it, they're
like, I, I get it, I'm hooked, I'm there.
At least they're in stock, all that stuff.
So yeah, it's it's literally just like you said, getting

(01:35:33):
someone to try. It yeah and definitely I want to
bring the prices down man, that's like my ultimate goal
ever since they started and. If you could have, obviously not
to get anyone's hopes up or anything, but if there was a
price that you'd love to just sit at that's good for the
client, it's good for you, growsthe business, all of that stuff,
what would you hope for a price to be after the tariffs and

(01:35:55):
everything? Finalized I I would obviously
right now it's impossible with the tariffs, but I think 100
bucks 265 it's like, you know, amazing, right?
Like that's that's for everybodyor anybody.
That's like ultimate goal. But again, it's like it's
impossible with the tariffs, like we'll be negative.

(01:36:16):
So it's it wouldn't, it wouldn'tmake sense.
But yeah, ultimate goal if tariffs drop, like we're going
to make it happen, you know, that's like that's the ultimate
goal and always in stock, like so guys can have access to good
grip at an affordable price. Like, really, that's what we're
trying to make. We're good.

(01:36:37):
I appreciate that, not just for me but for the industry as well
because we always need our tires.
But you got anything special coming up this year that you
want to make sure you announce or any special events, anything
like that? Nothing really as of now.
Obviously we're going to be at SEMA at the end of the year,
which is always fun. And it's like when the whole all

(01:36:59):
the Motorsports community comes together, are you going to be
trying to do something out there?
Yeah, I'll, I'll definitely be there.
But probably just being there. I don't know if I want to go
through the whole headache of, you know, especially doing a
booth or anything like that. I'm not there yet.
If I get offered to drive and someone wants to cover that,
then sure, yeah. Yeah.

(01:37:20):
But yeah, we might figure something out on the West Coast
during SIMA the same same way wedid like the entry combat ABS.
That was fun. The community enjoyed it.
Yeah, if our program is moving good and we have the car dialed
in and we might try to do something like that, that's
cool. And yeah, hopefully that's the

(01:37:42):
plan. So man, well you want to shout
any sponsors out or anything or sign off?
Everybody wow the guys that did my delivery.
I love the way the car looks that blue drift HQ like always
OMP dude like my suit is amazingit's so comfortable.
Gran and Nellie more Motorsports.
I don't know if you were able tosee they got these blue coils

(01:38:05):
coil packs so it matches with the car, like the coal packs are
actually blue. The blue coil wires.
Yeah, dude, it's it's awesome that we have companies that we
work with that I've been wantingto work with multi wheels.
The wheels look so big on the car, which I love it because

(01:38:26):
usually you have to run eighteens, right?
Yeah, but the way they designed that spoke it makes it look
bigger, which I think it looks like better on the car.
Yeah, yeah, since the Corvette has such a wheel, a big wheel
gap. Oh yeah.
I'm I'm stoked to be out here blessed and with my family
coming and supporting and I havethe whole Venezuela people

(01:38:47):
backing that. That's amazing.
Like I did a TikTok video and like showing the flag on the car
and stuff and it like blew up. So yeah, I'm super happy about.
That baby. Yeah, super happy about that.
That's awesome. Well, I just wanted to not say
that if you are looking for Zek Novas or you've been considering
it, maybe now you are after thisconversation, you can always use

(01:39:10):
the code Circle Adrift 2 now andsay 20% off.
So for sure, for sure. Absolutely.
I really appreciate it man. Thank you for taking the time
out of your weekend. Thank you man, it's always fun
to chat. Always, always good to.
See you go, enjoy the rest of it, brother you.
Too man, take care. Absolutely.
Stay away.

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Behind Formula Drift - FD Changes, Porsche Drift SUV & Tire Tariff Nightmares | Circle of Drift #145

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Behind Formula Drift - FD Changes, Porsche Drift SUV & Tire Tariff Nightmares | Circle of Drift #145